Introduction

As the idea of creating my own Anime Database sparked within me, I set out to create parse data from an existing website, MyAnimeList, since I utilize it a lot for managing the content I parse through my mind.

I was dumbfounded when I realized that the official API did not support for fetching anime or manga details. There was a way to do this via the official API but it was totally round-about. You had to use one of their API endpoints where you searched for a query and it would return a list of similar anime/manga with their details.

I could have used AniList’s API but I was already familiar with scraping data. I’ve done this before in a lot of former projects. And so I set out to develop Jikan to fulfill my parent goal; to make my own anime database. And so it took a project of it’s own.

History

Jikan was uploaded to GitHub on January the 11th with a single function of scraping anime data.

It wasn’t even called ‘Jikan’ back then, it was called the ‘Unofficial MAL API’. Quite generic, I know.

I came to terms with the name ‘Jikan’ as it was the only domain name available for the .me TLD and it’s a commonly used word in Japanese – ‘Time’. The ‘Plan A’ name was ‘Shiro’, but unfortunately everyone seemed to have hogged all the TLDs for it.

With this API, I guess you could say I’d be saving developers some … Jikan – Heh.

Enter;Jikan

Sounds like a title from the Steins;Gate multiverse.

Anyways, Jikan can provide these details from MAL simply by their ID on MAL

Anime

Manga

Character

Person

These are the implemented functions as of now. There are some further planned features.

Search Results

The official API does support this. However;

The response is in XML

It only shows the results of the first page

Jikan will change that by showing results for whatever page you select. And oh – it returns in JSON.

Is that it?

Mostly, yes. The reason this API was developed to provide very easy access to developers to data which isn’t supported by the official API. And there you go.